---But never mind that,
put pe giving me the skene-dhu.''
``What! you are for back to the Highlands---
The devil!---Have you selt all off before the fair?
This beats all for quick markets!''
``I have not sold---I am not going north---May
pe I will never go north again.---Give me pack my
dirk, Hugh Morrison, or there will pe words petween
us.''
``Indeed, Robin, I'll be better advised before I
gie it back to you---it is a wanchancy weapon in a
Highlandman's hand, and I am thinking you will
be about some barns-breaking.''
``Prutt, trutt! let me have my weapon,'' said
Robin Oig impatiently.
``Hooly and fairly,'' said his well-meaning
friend. ``I'll tell you what will do better than
these dirking doings---Ye ken Highlander, and
Lowlander, and Border-men, are a' ae man's bairns
when you are over the Scots dyke. See, the Eskdale
callants, and fighting Charlie of Liddesdale,
and the Lockerby lads, and the four Dandies of
Lustruther, and a wheen mair grey plaids, are
coming up behind; and if you are wronged, there
is the hand of a Manly Morrison, we'll see you
righted, if Carlisle and Stanwix baith took up the
feud. ''
``To tell you the truth,'' said Robin Oig, desirous
of eluding the suspicions of his friend, ``I
have enlisted with a party of the Black Watch, and
must march off to-morrow morning.
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